Women’s football receives trophies
News stories on football usually involve controversy between the sport’s governing body and its most important league. But while the big boys have been feuding, the young ladies have been polishing their skills. Jacqueline Woods has more.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Last November women’s soccer made a come back after being dormant for some nine years.
Oswin Blease, Chairman, Belize Rural Football Assn.
“I think I can recall in the 1993 or 1991, they had the Belize Games and we had teams from all over the districts. But sometime after that, women soccer went down and now we were able to revive it just recently in November. And I must say that this is a start and we plan to continue.”
Soon after the revival, the first organized Belize District female soccer tournament kicked off.
Oswin Blease
“Women’s soccer is growing, the girls are very, very interested in playing soccer and our association, the Belize Rural Football Association, staged for the past four years the Belize First Division Football in the rural areas. And the girls in the rural areas were interested, so they asked us to please organise rural football for them. So we had two teams from Belize City, basically Millennium and Kulture, and we had four teams from rural areas, that is Sandhill, Lucky Strike, Maskall and Ladyville. So the six teams together combine and we form what we call the Belize District Female Soccer Tournament.”
The tournament is scheduled to end in two weeks and either the Millennium team from Belize City or the Sandhill Girls will be walking off with this championship trophy. The trophies were donated by Reginald Jex, a Belizean who lives in the United States, but has been making significant contributions to sports in Belize.
Reginald Jex, Vice President, Liga Lempira Football
“I sponsor a league in New York, which consists of eighteen teams from all over the Caribbean. And I’m always interested in a female league and when I came to Belize last year and I saw the league going on I told Mr. Blease I’ll sponsor the trophy for them.”
Oswin Blease
“Many, many years ago they were trying to organise it and he’s impressed that we have at least brought it off the ground. So he said that he would like to assist us and make it an annual tournament.”
Blease says just as Jex and the business community have helped to promote women’s soccer, he hopes the sport will be able to receive as much publicity as male football. Jacqueline Woods for News 5.
The Belize District female soccer tournament will take a break over the Easter holiday, but the games continue on April twenty-second with a match between Millennium and Sandhill.
